Fatal Voyage

age, sex, race, and height for consistency with the presumed ID. This could be important, since the victim had been toothless, and dental records did not exist.

I broke at one-thirty and ate my bagel with cream cheese, banana, and Chips Ahoy! cookies while watching boats sailing under cars driving over the Jacques Cartier Bridge far below my office window. By two I was back with the bones, and by four-thirty I had finished my analysis.

The victim could have shattered her jaw, orbit, and cheekbone and smashed the depressed fractures into her forehead by falling. From a hot air balloon or high-rise building.

I called Claudel and left a verbal opinion of homicide, locked up, and went home.

I spent another night by myself, cooking and eating a chicken breast, watching a rerun of Northern Exposure, reading a few chapters of a novel by James Lee Burke. It was as though Ryan had dropped from the planet. I was asleep by eleven.

The next day was spent documenting the battered lady: photographing my findings with regard to biological profile and photographing, diagramming, describing, and explaining the injury patterns on her skull and face. By late afternoon I'd compiled a report and left it in the secretarial office. I was removing my lab coat when Ryan appeared at my office door.

“Need a lift to the funeral?”

“Rough couple of days?” I asked, taking my purse from the bottom desk drawer.

“There's not a lot of sunshine in the squad.”

“No,” I said, meeting his gaze.

“I'm completely jammed up with this Petricelli thing.”

“Yes.” My eyes never left his.

“Turns out Metraux isn't quite so sure about eyeballing Pepper.”

“Because of Bertrand?”

He shrugged.

“These bastards will dime their own mothers for an afternoon out.”

“Risky.”

“As tap water in Tijuana. Do you want the ride?”

“If it's not too much trouble.”

“I'll pick you up at eight-fifteen.”

* * *

Since Sergent-detective Jean Bertrand had died while on duty, he was given full state honors. La Direction des Communications of the Surete du Quebec had informed every police force in North America, using the CPIC system in Canada and the NCIC system in the United States. An honor guard flanked the casket at the funeral parlor. The body was escorted from there to the church, from the church to the cemetery.

While I had expected a large turnout, I was astounded by the mass of people who showed up. In addition to Bertrand's family and friends, his fellow SQ officers, members of the CUM, and many from the medico-legal lab, it looked like every police department in Canada, and many in the United States, had sent representatives. French and English media sent reporters and TV crews.

By noon, the bits of Bertrand that passed for his corpse lay in the ground at the Notre-Dame-des-Neiges Cemetery, and Ryan and I were winding our way down the mountain toward Centre-ville.

“When do you fly out?” he asked, splitting off Cote-des-Neiges onto rue St-Mathieu.

“Eleven-fifty tomorrow morning.”

“I'll pick you up at ten-thirty.”

“If you're aspiring to a position as my chauffeur, the pay is lousy.”

The joke plunged to its death before I'd finished saying it.

“I'm on the same flight.”

“Why?”

“Last night the Charlotte PD busted an Atlanta lowlife named Pecan Billie Holmes.”

He dug a pack of du Maurier's from his pocket, tapped one out on the steering wheel, and placed it between his lips. After lighting up with one hand, he inhaled, then blew smoke through both nostrils. I lowered my window.

“Seems the Pecan had a lot to say about a certain telephone tip to the FBI.”

THE NEXT FEW DAYS FELT LIKE A PLUNGE ON THE MIND ERASER AT Six Flags. After weeks of the slow climb, suddenly everything broke. But there was nothing amusing about the ride.

It was late afternoon when Ryan and I touched down in Charlotte. In our absence, fall had caught on, and a strong breeze flapped our jackets as we walked to the parking garage.

We drove directly downtown to the FBI office at Second and Tryon. McMahon had just returned from interviewing Pecan Billie Holmes at the jail.